Reviving A Black Theatrical Landmark

City Revisits Plan To Restore Howard

As time runs out on Mayor Anthony A. Williams's administration, his planners are trying to make good on an old promise to bring the rotting Howard Theater back to life.

The city, which has owned the national landmark of African American entertainment for more than 20 years, is seeking proposals from developers to restore the dilapidated structure on T Street NW.

City planners want a private developer to refashion the 1910 theater, which once seated 1,250, into a complex with half as many seats that would include a restaurant, a bar and a museum or gift shop.

The city is accepting offers from developers until April 13 and expects to take up to five months to select a winning proposal, said Derrick Woody, a coordinator in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development.

A recent market analysis by the city suggested that the Howard would be able to compete with other entertainment venues in the city if the capacity were reduced to about 600 seats and supplemental revenue came from a dining area and other sources. District officials are also interested in a house band of jazz musicians, similar to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, that could perform when other local or national acts are not scheduled to appear.

"We want a developer with the wherewithal to pull this off without public assistance or with very little public help," Woody said. "We don't want another state theater that is subsidized by taxpayers. We're relying on them to have quality programming and income from operations from the theater, restaurant and bar."

Any developer selected by the city would be required to restore the original facade of the building, including 17 original windows that were buried beneath decades of alterations and a layer of stucco. The facade is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Before there was the Apollo Theater in Harlem, there was the Howard Theater in the District. Built by black furniture store owner Benjamin Benedict, it was the first large theater for black audiences in the country, and it opened at a time when blacks were barred from the District's downtown theaters. Ella Fitzgerald won an amateur contest there. Duke Ellington and his orchestra were the star attraction when the Howard reopened in 1931, after a brief closing at the beginning of the Great Depression. By the 1950s, the theater attracted top jazz, soul and rock-and-roll performers including the Platters, Brook Benton, Dakota Station, Pearl Bailey and the Coasters. Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, the Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and other Motown acts followed in the 1960s.

Neighborhood activists are hesitant to celebrate the latest vision of Howard, saying they've seen the fortunes of the theater rise and fall more often than notes in an Ellington composition.

"Since the D.C. government acquired it in the mid-'80s, very little has been done to move forward to allow the Carnegie Hall of black Broadway to be put back into productive use," Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Alexander M. Padro said. "Despite numerous promises by various administrations, all we've had is a lot of nothing."

Woody said that the neighbors have a right to be skeptical but that the city is committed to action. "We're poised to move on this," he said. "We want to make this project come to fruition."

The city has budgeted $21 million over the next four years to repair the building's roof and make other improvements to ready the theater for development, Woody said. Vacant since 1984, the interior has suffered extensive water damage. The mechanical and plumbing systems have to be replaced, the bathrooms must be modernized, and asbestos has to be removed, among other things.

Planners envision a rehabilitated Howard Theater as the eastern anchor of a new entertainment district between the U Street and Shaw-Howard University Metro stations.